


Box Full of Darkness

by endlesshorizons



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Magical Realism, Self-Harm, Trigger Warnings, suicide ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-07
Updated: 2014-11-07
Packaged: 2018-02-24 11:04:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2579264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endlesshorizons/pseuds/endlesshorizons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Greg never asked for the ability, had never wanted it, but ever since the first time he had seen the thick black smudges, he had known what they meant.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"Does it hurt?" he had asked that first time, rubbing at the dark line on his big sister's arm. She said nothing, only stared at him with an unreadable expression before looking away.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>It took Greg several months to realise that the wounds didn't seep blood. Not the physical, liquid kind, anyway. It took him several years to understand that that didn't mean they hurt any less.</i>
</p><p>In which Greg can see every wound you inflict on yourself in your mind, and things turn out all right for Sherlock Holmes, after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Box Full of Darkness

**Author's Note:**

> Because I needed this tonight and, maybe, one of you need it too.
> 
> Title from "The Uses of Sorrow" by Mary Oliver.

Greg never asked for the ability, had never wanted it, but ever since the first time he had seen the thick black smudges, he had known what they meant.

"Does it hurt?" he had asked that first time, rubbing at the dark line on his big sister's arm. She said nothing, only stared at him with an unreadable expression before looking away.

It took Greg several months to realise that the wounds didn't seep blood. Not the physical, liquid kind, anyway. It took him several years to understand that that didn't mean they hurt any less.

It was more common than most people thought, Greg realised over the years, after the drunken nights of strip poker in university and the many girls -- and boys -- who stumbled into his bed. And later, in the force, where the blackened flesh mingled with fresh crimson gashes. Most people had them, some more than others. Some thick blemishes, traced over again and again, and other pencil-thin scratches, like accidental grazes.

The day he met Sherlock Holmes, however, was one that he will never forget. When Sherlock had first wandered onto a crime scene of his, all exaggerated swagger and too-loud exclamations, Greg had stared and stared, unable to tear his eyes away however many times he told himself to. Sherlock thought it was his deductions, the crime he had solved within the first thirty seconds of stepping onto the scene. He was wrong.

When Sherlock Holmes had ducked beneath the police tape, what Greg saw was an inky silhouette, sharp light eyes standing out of a figure shaded in with varying shades of coal and pitch and slate. Over time, Greg came to notice that Sherlock never wore t-shirts or rolled up his sleeves, and wondered if the reason had to do with light protruding edges matching the dark contours only Greg could see. His sergeants and constables grumbled about Sherlock's presence at crime scenes, wondered why Greg was so eager to include him. Greg looked at the glee lighting up the young man's face as he flew about and spewed out fact after rapid-fire fact, and he remembered the dull disinterest in his sister's eyes in the days before she dug too deeply at an ebony mark with a silvery blade.

Over the years, Greg watched with satisfaction as the black blemishes faded from the consulting detective's face and hands and the vee of his collar. He delighted at every sight of pale smooth skin. But sometimes Sherlock would raise his arm to a tall shelf or reach over for a piece of evidence, and the fluttering sleeves would reveal thick but precise straight lines leading from his wrist to where they disappeared under silky cloth. Greg wanted to clutch at those hands and rub them until the smudges came off like his childrens' doodles in washable marker, but he knew from experience that sometimes it didn't make a difference however much you try.

Then one day, a short blond man followed Sherlock to a crime scene, and Greg tried not to linger on the hole on his forehead, dark and deep and greedy as a black hole. He wasn't even surprised when the cabbie was shot and John Watson stood innocently behind the glare of the police lights. You couldn't get those perfect, precise outlines without a proper model.

And he never did come to regret letting John Watson walk away, as he watched the circle disappear from John's head and Sherlock's pale skin remained not only unmarred but the once-papery cheeks began taking on a healthy pink glow. Then there was the day he rushed into an alleyway to find Sherlock sitting bare-chested against a wall, gesturing impatiently as John tended to a graze on Sherlock's side and paid him no mind. There wasn't a single dark spot in sight, and even though Sherlock was still wearing his trousers, Greg took a look at the expression on his face as John finished with the wound and swept back a curl from his forehead, and knew there would be nothing to find anywhere else, either.


End file.
